"Happy is He Who Has Been Able to Learn the Causes of Things" -Virgil

Charles Darwin, with the publication of The Origin of Species, is recognized as the father of modern evolutionary theory. His revolutionary beliefs and ideas were direct results of contributions to evolutionary thought spanning from ancient Greece to the nineteenth century. These influences included great minds such as Carolus Linnaeus, Erasmus Darwin, Jean Baptiste Lamarck, and Sir Charles Lyell. As time progressed, these thinkers and a wide range of others contributed a growing body of knowledge supporting evolution, and creating a foundation on which Darwin would base his theory of evolution by natural selection.

Evolution is defined as the continuous genetic adaptation of organisms or species to the environment by the integrating agencies of selection, and is a combination of science and philosophy explaining how all species originated. Darwin's theory of evolution suggests that organisms adapt and respond to their environments, thereby evolving to become better suited to their respective environments. This theory is known as the survival of the fittest, where the most adapted organisms survive and flouri

Thomas Robert Malthus also contributed an important theory that helped to support Darwin's theory of natural selection. He wrote an essay, entitled An Essay on the Principles of Population, which basically stated that human populations grow geometrically, while their food supply only grows arithmetically. The essay proposed war, pestilence, and famine to keep population in check. This encouraged and supported Wallace's and Darwin's theories of evolution because it discouraged the Idle theory, a theory that predicted no competition between species, therefore disparaging natural selection. Malthus' essay was therefore a major influence and benefactor to Darwin's research and studies because competition leads to variation, which is highly stressed in Darwin's theory (Eiseley 127-129).

The Ancient Greek philosopher Anaximander is credited with being the earliest evolutionist. In approximately 600 BCE, he attempted to give a unitary explanation of things by assuming a single, original substance from which the world could have developmentally differentiated itself. Anaximander called this substance 'the indefinite,' presumably because it was of limitless extent, and because it could not be identified as any known material in the developed world. In short, Anaximander generated the thought of evolution, which would eventually spur the evolutionary works of the Renaissance, and later on, Darwin and his contemporaries (Stansfield 480).

The sciences, especially geology and biology, obviously play a very large role in evolutionary philosophy. Geology is a branch of science that is vital to validate evolution. This science basically gives evolution the timeline for which millions upon millions of creatures can adapt and evolve. Before Sir Charles Lyell proved that the earth was over four billion years old, most believed that it was between five and seven thousand years of age. Obviously, this sort of a time frame is far too short a period to support the process of evolution as it is known today, which is why geology is so crucial to evolutionary philosophy (Appleman 9). Biology gives the theory of evolution several other essential proofs. From the works of geneticists such as Mendel, it has been proven that all creatures have similar structure and essential, natural processes. These traits of inheritance are definatly proof of evolution, because without this pattern, all creatures would be completely unique, without any of the same characteristics that are demonstrated today in the over twenty million life forms on earth. These two sciences give evolution extremely pro

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